Animation for Games

Animating for games requires both knowing your game platform and using certain techniques for making your animation realistic yet playable. In this article, George Maestri offers a behind-the-scenes look at animating characters for gaming.

From the author of

From the author of

Games are a billion-dollar industry and a big part of the animation business.
Almost every game has animation in one form or another, and most of that animation
is in 3D. Animating for a game is very much like animating for film or video,
but with a few restrictions.

First, because games happen in real time, This puts a huge demand on the console
to render scenes in real time. To accommodate this, most characters are limited
in the amount of detail they have. Deformations can also be difficult to compute
in real time, so most games do not incorporate features such as dialog with
accurate lip-sync. These limitations will certainly fade away in the future
as consoles get more powerful.

Animating for Games

Creating animation for games is fairly straightforward. The big difference is
that, outside the cut scenes between game levels, you rarely animate anything
straight through. All animation in a game is comprised of short cycles and moves
that are strung together to make continuous animation.